Daily Market Highlights (06.12.2019)

Equity market posts sharpest weekly drop in 11 months

 

The MSE Equity Price Index moved lower for the fourth consecutive day as it slipped by a further 0.65% to a nine-month low of 4,619.417 points. Three companies finished the day in negative territory whilst only PG trended higher. Meanwhile, most shares ended unchanged whilst trading volumes contracted to €0.38 million compared to €0.52 million yesterday. During the past five days, the local equity index shed almost 2% representing a contraction of just over €100 million in the market value of local equities. Download a copy of today’s Equity Market Summary.

Malta International Airport plc slipped 1.4% to a three-month low of €7.00 across 11,682 shares. Today, MIA announced its November traffic results revealing an 8.7% increase in passenger movements. During the eleven-month period up to November 2019, a total of 6.83 million passenger movements were registered, representing an increase of 6.9% over the corresponding period last year. MIA had stated on 17 January 2019 that it is expecting passenger movements to increase by 5.8% during the whole of 2019 to 7.2 million.

International Hotel Investments plc dropped 4.4% to a three-month low of €0.755 on activity totalling 31,477 shares.

Also among the large caps, RS2 Software plc lost 1% back to the €2.08 level across 4,265 shares.

The only positive performing equity today was PG plc with a gain of 1.7% to the €1.78 level across 30,000 shares. The company is due to publish its interim financial results on 18 December.

Meanwhile, Bank of Valletta plc stayed at its over ten-year low of €1.05 on activity totalling 83,453 shares.

In the banking sector, FIMBank plc (100,236 shares) and HSBC Bank Malta plc (372 shares) closed unchanged at USD0.64 and €1.20 respectively.

Three deals totalling 11,500 shares left the equity of GO plc at the €4.14 level.

MIDI plc and Mapfre Middlesea plc traded flat at €0.515 and €2.14 respectively on shallow volumes. On Monday, MIDI announced that although discussions with Tumas Group in connection with the Manoel Island project ceased by mutual agreement, the company remains fully committed to the project and that development works will commence once the required planning permits are issued.

The RF MGS Index extended yesterday’s decline as it slipped by a further 0.27% to 1,144.299 points. US international trade policy continued to dominate headlines whilst in Europe, disappointing German industrial production and Italian retail sales continued to reflect the weak dynamics on the euro area economy. Following last week’s marginal rebound, the RF MGS Index shed 0.43% during the past five days amid heightened volatility in MGS prices.

Across the local corporate bond market, the sharpest negative movements were recorded in the 4.8% BOV plc 2020 and the 4% IHI plc (secured) 2026 which each lost 100 basis points. On the other hand, the 4.85% Melite Finance plc 2028 added 147 basis points whilst the two Tumas Investments plc bonds gained around 200 basis points.